Chapter 1: Champagne and Consequences
The roar was a living thing, a beast of noise and joy that rattled the cement walls of the tunnel and vibrated up through the soles of his boots. Josh Sahota pushed through it, a grin splitting his face so wide his cheeks ached. He followed the sound, the echoing chant of Russo! Russo! Russo! that led him like a homing beacon away from the men’s side of the facility and towards the epicenter of the chaos.
The door to the women’s changing room was propped open with a kit bag. He leaned against the frame, arms crossed, and just watched.
It was a beautiful, unprofessional mess. Neon towels were strewn like fallen banners. The air was thick with the smell of grass, sweat, and the sharp, sweet burst of champagne. Someone had hooked a phone to a portable speaker, tinny dance music battling the laughter. In the center of it all, drenched and beaming, was Alessia.
Her kit was plastered to her, her blonde ponytail dark and heavy with moisture. She held a half-crushed bottle aloft, spraying a shrieking teammate, her head thrown back in a laugh he could see but couldn’t hear over the din. Her joy was a physical force in the room. It always had been.
“Sahota! Get in here, you prick!” one of the defenders yelled, spotting him. A chorus of whistles and cheers went up.
He pushed off the doorframe, the grin still fixed in place. He accepted a slap on the back, dodged a playful spray of champagne. His eyes never left her. As he moved through the crowd, it felt like parting a sea. The celebration flowed around him, but his path was straight and true.
She saw him. Her bright blue eyes, electric with adrenaline, locked onto his. Her laughing mouth softened into a smile that was just for him. It was their old language, a decade of shared looks across crowded rooms. We did it. You see this? I know.
He reached her. The music, the yelling, the world shrunk to the space between their bodies, damp and humming with heat.
“Not bad, Russo,” he shouted over the noise, his voice rough. “For a toe-poke.”
“A winner’s a winner, Sahota!” she yelled back, her nose scrunching. “I’ll take it!”
He leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. Her scent cut through the champagne—vanilla shampoo, fresh sweat, her. “Knew you had it in you. Never doubted it for a second.”
She turned her head. Her cheek brushed his. It was an accident. It was always an accident. The noise seemed to dial down a notch, the room focusing to the point of contact.
Without thinking, driven by a pulse of pride and something far more dangerous, he grabbed her wrist. His fingers circled it easily. He didn’t say a word, just gave a slight tug, his eyes asking a question her wide ones answered with a frantic, barely perceptible glance around them.
He pulled her back, into the shadowed alcove between two banks of lockers. The metal was cool against his shoulder. Here, the light was dim, the sound muffled to a dull throb. Isolated.
Her chest was heaving, from the match, from the run, from this. Droplets of champagne sparkled on her collarbone. He watched one trail down, disappearing under the damp fabric of her shirt.
The cheeky grin he showed the world fell away. What was left was just Josh, raw and unmistakably wanting. He saw the same war reflected in her eyes—excitement, fear, a decade of friendship screaming in alarm.
He didn’t give the alarm a voice. He bent his head and caught her mouth with his.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a release. A crack of lightning after years of building thunder. His hand came up to cradle her jaw, his thumb stroking the hot, wet skin of her cheek. She tasted of victory and cheap bubbles and everything he’d been telling himself he couldn’t have. For one breathtaking, universe-stopping second, she kissed him back. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt, fisting the material, pulling him closer.
Then she froze.
It was a total, absolute lock-up. Every muscle in her body went rigid.
She wrenched her face away, turning her head sharply to the side. Her breath came in short, ragged pants that fogged the cold locker next to her cheek.
“Josh.” His name was a whisper, a plea, a stop sign. “No. Not here. Not now.”
The world crashed back in. The music from the speaker, a teammate’s shriek of laughter, the distant slamming of a door. The reality of where they were. Who they were. The million-word policy document they’d both signed.
He dropped his hand from her face as if burned. He took a full step back, his own breathing uneven. The cold metal of the locker seeped through his shirt, a shock to his system.
“Shit,” he breathed, running a hand through his curls. “Alessia, I’m—”
“Don’t.” She cut him off, finally looking at him. Her eyes were glassy, but her voice was firm. It was her captain’s voice. The one that organized a defence. “Don’t apologise. Just… don’t.”
She straightened her shoulders, a visible effort to pull the pieces of herself back together. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a gesture that felt like a dismissal. It lodged in his chest like a stone.
“The lads are waiting for you,” she said, her tone forcibly light. Normal. It was the worst sound he’d ever heard. “Go on. We’ll… we’ll talk later.”
It was a dismissal. A professional, friendly, utterly devastating dismissal.
He nodded, his jaw tight. Words were useless now. Anything he said would be wrong. He was the star striker who could find space in a packed penalty box, but here, in this three-foot gap between lockers, he was utterly lost.
He turned and walked back into the light and noise. The celebration seemed louder now, abrasive and fake. He forced a laugh at a joke he didn’t hear, accepted another bottle, took a long swig that tasted of nothing.
From across the room, through the haze of flying foam and dancing bodies, he watched her. She had plastered her smile back on, was hugging a teammate, accepting congratulations. But he saw the way her hand trembled slightly as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He saw the distant look in her eyes when she thought no one was watching.
He had kissed her. He had finally, stupidly, crossed the line they’d been toeing for years. And instead of the beginning of something, it felt like the end of everything.
The cold dread in his gut had nothing to do with club policy or media scandals. It was the terrified, sickening realization that he might have just ruined the most important thing in his life. And the even more terrifying realization that, feeling her mouth on his, knowing the seismic risk, he would do it again in a heartbeat.